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cityscape

LRT to Rain Destruction on Apricot Trees?

A proposed Eglinton West LRT entrance may carve out up to 900 square feet of a local park.

By

Apricot trees in blossom at Ben Nobleman orchard. Photo courtesy of Susan Poizner.

The Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard will have its first ever crop of plums and cherries this year, but a proposed entrance for the forthcoming TTC Eglinton West LRT may soon thin the harvest.

Susan Poizner, a 10-year resident of the Eglinton West area, used to see Ben Nobleman Park as an empty, underused space distinguished only by a shoddy playground and overgrown perennial beds. She decided to bring the space to life by co-founding a community orchard in 2009. Nine trees were planted, including cherries, plums, and pears. The following year, three apricot and two apple trees joined the bunch. Now over 20 volunteers care for the trees and carry out organic-fruit-tree-care workshops (last year 98 people were trained).

Full harvests are expected in 5-10 years, and Poizner expects that the bounty will be divvied up between volunteers and the food bank, and distributed at community events.

And yet, a proposed secondary southern entrance to the new Eglinton West LRT station may cause three to six orchard trees to be lost, as well as a number of mature evergreen trees. The station will be part of a new crosstown 25-kilometre rapid transit line that is scheduled for completion in 2020.

Susan Poizner tends to one of the newly planted orchard trees.

While the main entrance will be located on the north side of Eglinton, several residents (who live across the road) have indicated that they want a southern station entrance too. Most suggested at a February 2 open house that this entrance be located within Ben Nobleman Park, though others did suggest carving out part of the nearby Division 13 police station parking lot.

No clear community consensus has emerged and the TTC is now conducting a survey that presents four options for the entrance location, most of which carve out approximately 900 square feet of the park. According to Franca Di Giovanni, TTC community liaison officer for the Eglinton Crosstown project, the police have made their wishes clear–they wish to lose neither their parking spaces nor access from Eglinton Avenue.

For Poizner, a park entrance would mean not only the loss of precious fruit trees, but also a haven that unites the mixed residential and commercial community.

“Once you lose your green space, it never comes back,” she cautioned.

Comments

  • Anonymous

    The young trees, like the one above, can be transplanted. I’ve done it with my trees in my backyard, when they were young as well.

    • http://twitter.com/perfecto Perfecto

      They won’t be young by the time construction starts and completes.

      I hope you could see that a (going to be high traffic) subway entrance in a small park no way enhances the park.

      If you love parks, please click the survey link http://thecrosstown.ca/node/329 and vote Option 4.

  • Not Far From The LRT

    How about splitting the difference and carving up Everden south of Eglinton?

  • Anonymous

    It’s a bit late for an April Fools joke.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jasonkucherawy Jason Kucherawy

    Let the residents choose. Do they want an LRT entrance or apricot trees? Last time I checked, you could buy apricots at the supermarket. Or have a fundraiser to pay for an underground station and make the LRT dip under the park.

    • Anonymous

      The LRT is underground.

      Its an entrance they are talking about.

      Not sure why it needs to be 30 feet by 30 feet in size though.

      • Anonymous

        900 sq/ft is big?

        • Anonymous

          There are some entrances downtown that are what, 45 square feet?

      • http://twitter.com/geoffdes78 Geoff DeSouza

        While the actual entrance may not be that big, they still have to build it. If the park only gets a 30×30 space trampled residents should count themsleves lucky.

    • Anonymous

      Why not just put it in the parking lot? It would take up all of 3 parking spots.

  • Peter

    I love trees a nature as much as the next guy/gal, but come on. The city is finally getting much needed transit and you are worried about a few trees that can be grown somewhere else?
    Torontoist, I expect better from you as your publication has been advocating for transit development.

  • Anonymous

    Put it in the police station parking lot! Since they fenced it off a few years ago it’s dead space to the community anyways and there are always spaces free that won’t be missed.

  • Anonymous

    Take the space from the police station parking lot. And then cut their budget by 10%.

  • Anonymous

    there is no question of where the entrance should go, clearly in the parking lot! not in the one tiny bit of greenspace on that part of Eglinton. that parking lot is never full anyways.

  • Anonymous

    Perhaps two birds could be killed with one stone here: replace the parking lot with a station entrance and mixed-use (Green P and police) multilevel underground parking structure. The police wouldn’t be deprived of their parking, street parking could be eliminated, and people could drive to the station.

  • Anonymous

    Um, no. Trees can be replanted. Once you lose your transit station entrance, it can never come back. This is a tail wagging the dog article.

    • Anonymous

      You’re framing this in a misleading way. Neither the station nor its entrances exist yet, so it can’t be taken away. It also wouldn’t be the only entrance, as “your entrance” implies. As for an entrance never coming back, isn’t Dundas Station planning a new one for Gould street?

      Once you lose urban green space to infrastructure, how often does it comes back? There are other solutions.

      • http://twitter.com/UnsureSmith Tyson Smith

        Except looking at the options proposed for a southern entrance on The Crosstown’s website shows that the planners are looking for ways that the entrance can add to the park, not take away. The loggia idea and the green roof idea are both spectacular ways of integrating urban transportation into natural parkland, especially in the way that the loggia option is oriented as an entranceway to the park from Eglinton. The parking lot plan means that passengers using the entrance are simply living within the not particularly interesting urban environment at the Allen/Eg intersection. If the entrance is instead placed in the park, passengers are experiencing the LRT in a far more engaging way that takes advantage of green space.

        Parks aren’t separate from the urban environment. By integrating them into the LRT entrance people have the opportunity to become more involved and invested in the green spaces which are part of Toronto’s urban fabric.

        • Anonymous

          Christie Pits and Christie Station are separated by a street wider than Everden, but that doesn’t diminish the impact of the park when you see it as you climb those steps to the exit. It does spare the park from being diminished to mere auxiliary space for commuters and lingering connection-seeking riders and one-last-puff smokers, though.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe all LRT stations / entrances should have green roofs. I’d vote for that.

  • Jojo

    This city has millions and millions of trees – a few can go. #TorontoistFail

  • http://twitter.com/geoffdes78 Geoff DeSouza

    Just poll the residents – do they really want an entrance on that side, or do they want the park in its current condition? If they pick the former, do your best to re-plant the trees. But any more accommodation really is a waste of money, especially as it’s a decision that’s properly being made on the local level. If people value infrastructure over park space, there’s no quibbling with that.

    (And, no, the police station losing spots doesn’t really seem like a viable answer. While I don’t doubt that they’re not needed most of the time, a bit of excess capacity is a good thing with police facilities.)

  • http://twitter.com/perfecto Perfecto

    They paved paradise and put up a subway entrance. They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum. And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them.

    If you love parks, please click the survey link http://thecrosstown.ca/node/329 and vote option 4. Thank you.

  • Liva

    “You cannot eat your cake and have it” it is either three trees or another exit/entrance to the LRT – the residents should choose. The Police need their Parking as well as the residents need their trees…If you loose the LRT exit now, you will need two decades of lobbying to get one and if you loose 3 trees, come with me to Northern Ontario and I will offer you an ocean of trees…

  • Eric S. Smith

    As with all questioning headlines, the answer is no. But Option 4, the minimalist glass box in the police station parking lot that doesn’t block access to Eglinton, would obviously avoid any impact on the park.